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The Political Behavior of the Chinese Middle Class

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Abstract

For many, the future of China’s political development hinges upon the role of the newly rising middle class. However, little has been done to empirically examine the characteristics of the Chinese middle class. This paper is an effort to fill in this gap. It shows that, the Chinese middle class pays greater attention to politics and engages more in informal/personal activities in dealing with conflicts with government policies or officials. However, the behavior of the middle class as an aggregate is not significantly different from that of other classes when it comes to political activities that require greater civic engagement or greater courage to confront the political system. The members of the Chinese middle class are not ready to be agents of political development in action although they hold higher democratic attitudes in mind as shown in previous studies.

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Notes

  1. This point and the following reasonings are summarized by An Chen, “Capitalist Development, Entrepreneurial Class, and Democratization in China,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 117, No.3, (2002), pp. 415.

  2. Refer to http://eacsurvey.law.ntu.edu.tw/chinese/eng_intro.html for detailed information of the dataset.

  3. The detailed information of the data is at http://www.asianbarometer.org/.

  4. According to Chen and Lu, “there tends to be a huge gap between reported (or nominal) and actual income in many occupational groups in China, and the latter is often kept secret for various purposes, such as tax evasion (which is highly prevalent in China).” pp.18. Also see, Jie Chen, Popular Political Support in Urban China (Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), pp. 89–92, and Tianjian Shi, Political Participation in Beijing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp.150.

  5. Jie Chen and Chunglong Lu estimated that 15% of population belongs to the middle class. An Chen estimated 4%. Xueyi Lu estimated 16%.

  6. Lowell Dittmer, Haruhiro Fukui, and Peter Lee argue that political interaction within the informal dimension and behind-the-scenes politics is at least as common and influential as formal politics in East Asia. See their Informal Politics in East Asia, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Rd, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Min Tang

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Correspondence to Min Tang.

Appendix 1: Questions Related to political behavior in ABS (translated from Chinese)

Appendix 1: Questions Related to political behavior in ABS (translated from Chinese)

How often (0:never −3: often):

Watched political news?

Listened radio news last week?

Read newspaper last week?

Talk politics?

When you have problems or issues, did you (0: never-3: often):

Express to leaders?

Ask other leaders to intervene?

Ask others to persuade leaders?

Get help from official’s friends?

Write to newspaper?

Complain through hierarchy?

Complain through political organizations?

Complain through people’s congress delegates?

Complain through unions?

Write to government office?

Report to complaint bureau?

Sue in court?

Work slowdown?

Organize colleagues?

Harass leaders?

Demonstrate/sit-in?

Refuse tax?

Did you (0:never-3 often:):

Mobilize others to attend elections?

Nominate candidate?

Recommend candidate to leader?

Persuade others to nominate candidate?

Persuade others to vote for certain candidate?

Persuade others not to vote for certain candidate?

Complained about elections?

Mobilize others to boycott unfair elections

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Tang, M. The Political Behavior of the Chinese Middle Class. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 16, 373–387 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-011-9166-y

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